It all starts downtown

Does the synonym for Chicago's downtown date from 1897, when the elevated train circle was completed? Or did it start a decade and a half earlier?

Many historians and present-day guidebooks have asserted that the Loop has meant downtown since the 1880s. As proof, they cite the five networks of cable car lines that crisscrossed the central business district at street level, each ending in its own loop around several blocks, permitting the trains to turn about.

But transportation historian Bruce Moffat, author of "The `L': The Development of Chicago's Rapid Transit System, 1888-1932)," insists that those loops didn't equal the Loop.

In researching his book, Moffat dug through mountains of records, examined spools and spools of microfilmed newspapers and studied every archive he could, and the only references he found were to the loops as transportation routes. "It was not the Loop as a proper noun," he says.

That didn't come until the arrival of elevated railroad lines into the central business district.

Chicago's first elevated line went into operation in 1892 on the South Side, followed quickly by one for the West Side and plans for two others. Just as cable cars had been a technological improvement over horse-drawn streetcars, elevated trains were seen as the next big thing in Chicago transportation.

No one, however, wanted a hodgepodge of elevated tracks clogging up most downtown streets as the cable-car lines did.

The solution was a set of elevated tracks circling the central business district. Engineers, city officials and train company owners eventually decided the tracks would run along 5th Avenue (now Wells Street), Van Buren Street, Wabash Avenue and Lake Street. The Lake Street section was completed in September 1895. Work on the other three sides began a year later. Finally, on Oct. 3, 1897, Chicagoans got their first ride on what was known as the Union Loop (for the Union Elevated Railroad that owned it). Total cost of the project: $600,000 (the equivalent of about $13 million in today's money).

In 1924, the Loop and all the city's elevated lines merged into a single company, and, in 1949, they were sold to the Chicago Transit Authority.

No other city in the world has an elevated Loop like Chicago's. Yet, for much of its existence, it was called an eyesore, and, as recently as 1974, Mayor Richard J. Daley, father of the city's present chief executive, planned to demolish the structure.

Today, though, the Loop has come to mean Chicago. (So much so that newly fashionable neighborhoods, outside the downtown area, have borrowed the name to add cachet: North Loop, South Loop, West Loop.)

"The Loop `L' is like the cable cars in San Francisco," says David Bahlman, president of the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois. "It is a transportation icon."

The Loop remains the city's financial, political and governmental center, and its transportation hub: Last year, nearly 16.5 million riders boarded rapid transit trains at Loop stations, and probably an equal number got off. Yet, in the daily hustle and bustle, those flowing in and out of the Loop probably have little chance to learn about or appreciate the area so important to the city.

Tempo has taken up the task, exploring the area circumscribed by the "L" tracks. We've searched out its hidden corners, delved into its loveliness and ugliness, examined its curiosities, and walked the streets with its police, pedestrians and pigeons.

So, here's the Loop, the heart of Chicago.

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UNAUTHORIZED LOOP: An insider's guide to the heart of Chicago

TUESDAY: CURIOSITIES

A quiz. The alley that time forgot. Pigeons. Private clubs. Entertainment secrets.

WEDNESDAY: AN UNUSUAL TOUR

The ugliest and the loveliest buildings. Shopping and eating you won't find in the travel guides. Elevators: an appreciation.

THURSDAY: IMAGES

Tribune photographer Alex Garcia's view of the Loop.

FRIDAY: PEOPLE

The Preacher, The Cop, The Resident, The Bar Owner. Also, does someone live in the Daley Center?

Daley Question readers responded generously to my plea for help in finding a fudge recipe made with Nesquik, formerly known as Nestle Quik. ("Fudge recipes, Nestle-style," Daley Question, Feb. 18, 2015). Bob Smith wrote in from Wheat Ridge, Colo., asking for a recipe he believed his dad had...